Christian student beaten by mob in Bangladesh

A 20-year-old student in Bangladesh was beaten by a mob of 50 Muslims after distributing Christian literature near a large Muslim event.

Rajen Murmo, from Believers’ Church Bible College, was distributing books along with 25 other students in the town of Uttara, in northern Dhaka. According to the government, they were just a few kilometres away from four million Muslim pilgrims who had gathered for the annual World Muslim Congregation.

Murmo told Compass Direct News that some men approached him and said that Muslims did not follow the Bible as the Quran superseded it.

The men reportedly probed him on where he got the books from and the address of his religious leaders and mission.

"But I did not give them the address,” he said. “If I had given them the address of the Bible college, they would have destroyed it. My blank denial to give information to them made them enraged, and they started beating me. They told me if I do not give the address of the religious leaders and mission, they would kill me.”

Over 50 Muslims reportedly started to beat him and tear at his clothes, leaving Murmo with a split lip. He was saved from the mob only when security forces rescued him.

The mob persuaded the security forces to take Murmo to a police station, where he was released by Amos Deory, the principal of the Bible College. Deory claimed that the police were concerned that Murmo would have been killed had he not been rescued in time.

The Rev Kiron Roaza of Believers’ Church told Compass Direct News that the distribution of literature by the students was just a normal part of their evangelistic work, and that the right to propagate their faith was enshrined in the Bangladeshi constitution.

Bangladeshi Muslims hold the World Muslim Congregation on a par with the hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, in Saudi Arabia. The event was first launched in the 1960s by controversial group Tabligh Jamaat, the group behind London’s proposed “mega-mosque”.